In the late 900s, the Assyrians regained control of the region. They had always been known as brutal warriars, with well-organized, well-equiped armies. They showed no mercy to their victims: those conquered were robbed, killed, tortured or enslaved. They were hated by those they ruled.

About 911 BCE, the king of Assyria, Adad-Nirari, began conquering. He began with the northern part of Mesopotamia, taking, along with the land and people, all the gold and silver and other valuables he could steal. Eventually, his succesors were able to expand the kingdom to the south, conquering Babylonia.

With the kingdom now spread out over a great distance, Tilgath-Pileser the third had the problem so many other rulers faced: How do you control an empire so large? Because of the brutality of the Assyrains, they had never gained the loyalty of those they conquered. Many rebelled, trying to regain their freedom. With kindness not a requirement, he tried to break the rebellion by separating people of the conquered lands, forcing some of them to move. 30,000 Assyrians were once led on a harsh march through harsh deserts to the Zagros Mountains.

By 650 BCE, the empire covered the Persian Gulf to Egypt, to what is now Turkey. The wealth they stole from the conquered was used to build their own cities, not to improve the cities of the conquered. This, and the enforced relocations increased their unpopularity, and did nothing to stop the rebellions. the Chaldeans and the Medes formed armies of their own and overthrew the Assyrian government in 612.

The Chaldeans' capital was Babylon. They were conquerers as well, and enthusiastic traders. They traded with Lebanon, Egypt, and Greece, and protecting their trade routes was an important motivation for their conquests.

Their leader was the great king Nebuchadnezzar, (Check out your Old Testament for more on him) who ruled from 605 to 562 BCE. He took Jeruselum and Tyre, among other cities. He forced the Egyptians to leave Syria and Phoenicia, and took them for himself. These cities were valuable trade route to the Mediterranean.

Nebechadnezzar had as much trouble as the others in controlling his empire. These people were just as unhappy under Nebechadnezzer as they had been under the Assyrians. They did not want to pay their taxes to the Babylonians, and they showed their displeasure through their rebellions.

In 598 BCE, the Jews in Judah decided they had had enough. They refused to pay their taxes. Nebechadnezzar responded by overthrowing their ruler and forced 3,000 of them to march to Mesopotamia. In 587, he handled a rebellion by burning Jeruselum and destroying their temple, enslaving the Jews.

Achievements of Nebuchandnezzar and his people:

1. The hanging gardens, one of the seven wonders of the world. (Can your children discover, through research, what the other wonders would be? What would they choose today?

2. Astronomy: The Babylonians had always been great mathematicians and astronomers. They had developed calendars based on the phases of the moon and they later learned to increase its accuracy by adding seven months every nineteen years. They learned to divide the hour into 60 minutes. They introduced place value. These facts can be introduced into your math classes.

The End of the Empire:

From 556-539, Nabonidus ruled Babylon. He was a very weird king. He bragged about his great military victories-in battles he lost or never fought in the first place. When his city faced civil war and famine, he simply went on vacation somewhere else. He chose a new god for the city, (Interestingly named Sin.) Needless to say, these people of Babylon, who had never been especially loyal anyway, were not at all loyal to this odd king. Persia's Cyrus the Great was busy building an empire of his own, and when he decided to add Babylonia to it, he was welcomed by the citizens. They may have figured Cyrus couldn't possibly be worse than Nabonidus.